Starting this Journey

For many years people have suggested that I write about the unusual life I have been privileged to live.  I have resisted because I didn't want to draw attention to myself......but then we moved to Soyo, Angola, and I began to blog about life here as a journal and for my kids and friends to be a part of this journey.  I have come to realize that all the experiences I have lived thus far are unique......and I believe that God has made the way for me to travel and live in unusual places around the world for the past 40 years for several reasons.  The first and most important is to bring Glory to God in all that occurs and then for my growth as a person as well as to have influence and give help to those around me.....so why would I think that I shouldn't share these stories?

Not all my experiences are spiritual.....in fact, it has taken many years for me to reflect back and to see God's hand in the moving from one place to another, in the preparation to be ready for the next place and set of experiences it would bring......  I believe that there is usefulness in sharing what I am learning and to leave a record for others to see definite guidance of God's hand in my life.....so that they may be able to look more closely to their own life and see this in their own unique experiences more quickly than I did.

I am thankful that God doesn't wait until we have it all together to use us......we just need to be willing. There were many time when I didn't even think about why I was going places.......but then I'm getting ahead of myself......this is reflections on my journey......and I need to start looking back.  One more thing......I'm sad that all my photos from these days are in storage in northern California because I have learned  from my other blog that these make the blog more interesting.....so someday I will go back and add these photos......God willing.....

Since this blog is to focus on how God has moved in my life, I think looking at Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" daily devotions is a good way to think about what to write.  I have been reading his devotions for years now and find that each time the devotion is read, it has new insights for me to think about and causes me to pause and search my life to see how my focus is changing to be more like God wants me to be.....

So here we go......

Today the reading is:  "Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass".  Psalm 37:5  The focus is making sure we plan everything with God....

My Utmost For His Highest - Oswald Chambers

How does one share the amazing experiences that you have learned from and grown from that were a gift from God for you to walk in and walk with Him through.  First, it is critical to say that none of what has been gifted to me as experiences were of my own making.  I walked into so many of these with selfish or self centered desires but only later in life do you see that God gave an opportunity and then took my selfishness and made something beautiful of it.  For years I did not plan with God in mind at all but only what might be exciting and different......

Vietnam was the first real step out.  Hoa Khanh Children’s Hospital (HKCH) in Danang was my first overseas position.  I had been a nurse for less than two years when a Korean missionary, Chang Ho Lee, came to speak at the international Bible study at my parents home.  I was bored with my life....at 23 and was looking for something exciting to do.  He suggested I come to Vietnam as a nurse and find work there.  It seemed so exciting and I told my parents about it.  They said that I needed to go with a mission agency for security.  They introduced me to their friends, Hubert and Rachel Mitchell, from Go Ye Fellowship.  They interviewed me and, I believe, because of my parents they sent me to Vietnam. 

I had to find an agency that was working in Vietnam to be on loan to and the agency was World Relief Commission. Next I needed to raise $125.00/month for living expenses and since I had worked for 18 months as a nurse I had the money for a round the world air ticket  The raising of these funds became a challenge for me from the beginning.  How do you ask for money to live and work in a foreign place?  I was staying with a neighbor, Rube Hoffman, who was blind and elderly.  He listened when I spoke to him about the plan and was such an encouragement.  He offered to send $50.00/month to support me there.  This was a sacrifice for him, not because of the money, but because of the loss of the companionship at his home.  He was such a dear man. 

I found myself getting cold feet about 3 weeks before I was to leave in March 1971 and went to my dad to, I believe, try to back out of the plan.  I told him that I felt that since I was not married, I should get his agreement to go to Vietnam.  His reply?  “I figured you wouldn't follow through with this”.  Wow!….what a shock and at that  moment I knew that I had to prove to him that I did have staying power.  I went ahead, packed my suitcase and headed for South East Asia.  I believe that had I been seeking God's will for my life at this time, I would have had greater peace with leaving.....but instead I got on a plane and after we had taken off looked at a map to see where Vietnam was......and I was really shaken but felt I couldn't 'fail' and not continue on this adventure.

HKCH was located in the middle of a Marine base outside of Danang.  It was a 120 bed children’s hospital that had been staffed by Marine corpsmen and VN nurses.  Now it was being transferred to World Relief Commission to manage so had an American doctor, & two American nurses to work with the Vietnamese nurses.  I was to fill the 3rd nurse position.   It had a small burn unit, general ward, surgery room, laboratory, xray, pharmacy, emergency rooms and outpatient clinic.  A new orthopedic surgeon, David Alvarez, and his pediatrician wife, Nancy Alvarez Schwartz, came shortly after I arrived there. 

The work was to be a supervising nurse in the hospital and train the nurses.  Less than 2 years out of school, I was incredibly naive....and totally out of touch with how ignorant I was.  I suppose we all believe we know pretty much everything when we are 23 years old.    I’ll never forget showing up the first day in the clinic in my white uniform dress, white nylons, white shoes, nursing cap, having taken my antimalarial pill on an empty stomach and the nurse, Faith, started laughing at me.  I was half a world away from all I knew and was so incredibly out of place.  She sent me back to change into street clothes and hurry back.  I took off the stockings, shoes, cap and wore sandals and headed back.  

Part of the new nurse “hazing” Faith set for me was to put me in the most difficult situations that would challenge my will to be there.  I had worked only in a newborn nursery that also had a section for premature babies.  It was a small nursery in Glendale, CA, so in no way was I really prepared for what I would see and have to do.  First day she gave me two young children that each had an abscess to be drained.  Something I had never done nor seen done.  No air conditioner, just a fan and the anxiety of performing minor surgery was huge.  Thankfully one of the Vietnamese nurses talked me through the procedure. 

The next incident that I remember so distinctly was the night we were in Bible Study.  Two issues were faced that night.  First was a plan by Dr. Bob Long to have each of us tell how we were 'called' to work in Vietnam.  I was sitting next to the new doctor, Nancy, and was trying to figure out what I should say.  It didn't sound spiritual at all to say, 'I was bored and this seemed like quite an adventure'.  I felt out of place there already and didn't want to alienate nor minimize the real 'call of God' that the other staff had. Thankfully Nancy spoke just before me and said she had come because her husband, David, felt a strong leading of the Lord to be there and she would support him.  She also stated that whatever day he was ready to leave, she would go with him.  This was quite a shock for all in the room.  Before they could come to me and ask me to speak, we got a call from the emergency room that casualties had come in.  

Someone had thrown a grenade into a village fire and we had about 20 casualties.  The corpsmen came to help us and I remember being so shaky that I was unable to put the tubing into the IV bottle to start the IV on a patient.  The corpsman gave me advice.  “You don’t have time to feel upset by what you are seeing here and if you can’t get control of your emotions, you need to go home”.  “These people don’t have the time to wait for you”.  "So put the bottle on the floor between your feet and use your body strength to spike the bottle”.  I did and it worked. Throughout my time in Vietnam that man’s advice stayed with me.  Don’t waste these people’s time by allowing your emotions to gain the upper hand.  I’m not sure if this is a good or healthy goal but it did get me through the difficulties of loneliness, fear, sense of being overwhelmed by what I saw and was doing and I felt more in control.  It wasn't until one event that I realized how much his words had changed me......

I remember one day after more than a year at the children's hospital I was taking a baby that had come in and died to Xray to see what the actual cause of death was.  Dr. Alvarez took the film to process that day and I was to wait to make sure the film was good.  I felt I shouldn't leave the baby on the cold Xray table so I held him and became horrified that I felt nothing.  I realized that I had so partitioned my emotions that I didn't feel anything and tried to force myself to cry over the death of this precious baby.  Glenn Mitchell, one of the workers, came by and saw me looking so distraught.  He took the baby from me and sent me to my room.  I cried, finally, not just for the little baby and the family that had lost their child but also over the loss of something inside of me that was innocent and vulnerable.  I had quickly learned to be protected from emotions that would show weakness and not control.  How foolish this is…..because for most of life's experiences, I know that I have so little control over most everything but thankfully I am watched over and lead along the path by a loving God who is showing me the way to go, if I choose to follow.  And even if I am not paying attention, He is still watching over me and waiting for me to turn and recognize Him.  He is a God of mercy and grace and I'm so thankful.  

For many years now I have been seeking His direction in my life and I must say, it is still interesting, exciting, and full of unknowns......which I love......and far more peaceful.....